LEWISTON – A low-income housing development has been accused of violating the Maine Human Rights Act by failing to make a reasonable accommodation for a tenant with mental-health problems.

Diana Warden filed a complaint with the Maine Human Rights Commission earlier this year, claiming that River Valley Village, formerly Tall Pines, discriminated against her by refusing to let her have a screen door.

Warden suffers from agoraphobia and panic attacks, and she claims that she needs a screen door so that she doesn’t feel trapped.

The apartments in the Lewiston housing unit used to have screen and storm doors, but Caleb Maine Development Corp. replaced them with single doors after buying the complex in 1993.

According to a report by an investigator for the rights commission, the new doors were less expensive and easier to maintain. But they didn’t work for Warden.

Warden claims she told the property manager that she needed a screen door, agreed to pay for the door herself and even submitted a note from her doctor explaining that the single door would increase her anxiety and panic attacks.

But her request was denied.

The property manager told the investigator for the rights commission that after checking with a compliance officer for the Americans with Disabilities Act, he told Warden that she could buy a portable roll-up screen. The owners of the development believed that was a reasonable accommodation.

Warden tried the portable screen for a few days, but she wasn’t satisfied so she resubmitted her request for the screen door, the investigator’s report says. Warden eventually contacted the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and filed a complaint with the Maine Human Rights Commission.

Barbara Lelli, an investigator who handled the case, concluded that reasonable grounds existed to believe that Caleb Maine Development Corp. discriminated against Warden.

“Allowing Ms. Warden to install screen/storm doors to her apartment – one unit out of 296 – is clearly not going to impose an undue burden,” Lelli wrote in her report. “A screen door does not fundamentally alter an apartment complex any more than does a ramp for a physically disabled tenant.”

The report will be forwarded to the Maine Human Rights Commission for a vote on Dec. 13.